Uncategorized

This is a response to @NightCometh's blog quoting Obama.

Let me preface this by saying, this isn't about religion, this isn't about birth control, or abortion, or gay marriage, or any of the hot button topics that have been swirling around recently. This is me expressing how I feel about a certain part of the Obama quote about how he would not want his daughters to be "punished with a baby."

Hi, I'm Meg, and I'm my mom's perpetual punishment.
At least, that was how I felt growing up. See, I was conceived by a couple that was out of wedlock and then forced to marry because of the pregnancy. Growing up I was keenly aware of what my existence meant to my family. They never outright told me that I was born in sin, I figured that out on my own one day when I was 7 after looking at their wedding sampler that my mother had stitched.
See, they were married in August of '88, and I was born January 26 1989 at 9:35 at night. I did the math in my head (a feat let me tell you) and I knew that there weren't 9 months between August and January. When I was 5 my mom had a mini "talk" with me seeing as I was in a school among other children and my bestest best friend in the entire world at the time was a little boy named Andrew. She told me that when a boy and a girl grow up they get married and the daddy's sperm and mommy's egg get together and make a "me" after 9 months, and that only happens if you're married.
But because of me my parents didn't graduate college. Because of me daddy had to work long hours, spending weeks, and sometimes months at a time away from home working a dangerous job so I could possibly eat that day. There were a lot of days we didn't get to eat. There were a lot of nights I watched as my mom would try to hide the fact that she was giving my sister and I her meals so we wouldn't go hungry.
The earliest thought I can remember having was that I wish I had been born a boy. Maybe if I had been a boy, daddy wouldn't be gone all the time, he would want to spend time with me, and maybe I could help my mommy out more. I remember feeling sad when they couldn't find a job because "they didn't have a college degree."
I felt this was my fault. They never meant for me to feel that way. Never did my mom ever tell me that she wished I had been born at a different time, or that I ruined anything for her. But of course when your child asks you why you didn't get to study abroad in China during your senior year of course you're going to say it's because you were pregnant! I know this wasn't meant or said with any intention of blaming me or making me feel bad. But I did. I still do sometimes.
I felt like I was a punishment for my mom. I felt like I took away the life from my mom that she should have had. This is a terrible way for a child to feel. I felt like it was my fault when my mom couldn't have any more kids after my little sister. She would tell us Bible stories and about God and his will for us. She said that God gives us things to be responsible over and take care of, and that sometimes if we do really well with them he will give us bigger things to take care of (she was reading the parable about the guy who gave his servants gold to look after, I'm too tired after writing 14pgs of my thesis paper today to go look it up so deal with it).
I knew she wanted another baby, but I was pretty terrible with my little sister. We fought all the time and it was really hard for me to be nice and take care of her. I knew that God wasn't going to give me another sibling because I was so terrible to the one I had. I remember crying myself to sleep at night thinking these thoughts. It wasn't until I was 20 that I learned that my parents didn't have any more children because my father had a vasectomy. I can't explain the feeling of relief I felt when I learned that. I believed whole heartedly that it was my fault. That I was punishing my mom more by being bad to the point where God would not give her more children.

Nobody should ever feel like that ever. No child should ever have to think of themselves as a "punishment", as the blight that ruined their mother or father's life. I'm more than an accident. I'm more than a bad decision. I'm more than an inconvenience. I'm more than a punishment. I didn't will myself to be born alive, I didn't maliciously invade my mother's womb to serve only as a constant reminder of decision that wasn't all the way thought through. This attitude towards unborn children is going to make for a lot more like me. There's going to be a lot more children who loathe their very existence because they were the result of a bad decision (not talking about rape here).

I AM NOT A FORM OF PUNISHMENT. And you aren't either. And neither are your babies. We had no say in the conditions we were conceived under.

If anything, it's a punishment to the baby, not to the parents.